as far as i know there are only about 5 lazair 2's flying. mine is stock, 2 others are fairly stock, and then there's gene's in BC that is highly modified and yours, which has some mods (wheels and brakes are a mod on yours).

so you're on your own.

as for amphibs, i'm working on that this winter and the good thing about a lazair is that if you need more climb, just add more power or redrives.

Do the stock plastic front wheels have tight-fitting metal bearings that would make it hard or impossible to slide them off a slightly out of round axle? I haven't measured accurately, so out of round is still speculation on my part.

How well do the stock plastic wheels hold up for operations on concrete? I have to taxi about 1 km on concrete to the concrete runway.

the stock nosewheels on mine have no bearings, the "axle" just slides through the plastic hole. they wobble a weeee tiny bit when rolling on the grass but its totally acceptable. i think its funny that a lazair 2 has 6 wheels......

as for concrete......no experience with a lazair 2 on concrete here, but i did put a nose ski on my lazair 2 last winter, and after a few trips through the snow drifts my stainless steel nose ski axle was bent - but i just used nylon bushings instead of real steel bearings and so with a bit of wiggling the ski came off.

maybe you should use your rubber wheels, but replace the steel bearings with just a nylon guide or shoulder washers.

> but replace the steel bearings with just a nylon guide or shoulder washers

Given my taxi distance, I might need bearings to avoid overheating or wearing through the axle, but the nylon shoulder washer idea might be just the ticket. I might use them to keep a 3/4" bearing from wobbling on the 5/8" axle. The nylon would likely have enough give to be pried out when the wheel had to come off for repair.

theres a website on my parts page that i have for the B4 bearing (shoulder washer). look on their site, maybe they have something right to size for you. they are pricy, but they have every size imaginable and usually in stock. Rulon is the material, superior to nylon.

My plastic nose wheels have two nylon bushes for a snug fit on the tube axle. no wobblies here. i usually try to avoid long taxying but when i do i keep to the tail dragger way and keep the tail on the ground
ozzie

Getting the Azusa front wheel with the flat tire off the inner axle required me to destroy the wheel. The steel 5/8" ID of the steel ball-bearing was apparently a tight fit when the inner axle was new. No amount of penetrating oil, time, and non-destructive tapping would budge it.

I'll probably return to stock or near stock configuration in order to have something maintainable. Looking at the Lazair 2 manual, it appears to have a T220 front axle (I assume 1" OD) a T246 inner sleeve, and T47 retaining collars. Where would I find specs (alloy, ID, OD, etc.) for these parts?

Tyler shows a possible source for the stock wheels. Any sources you guys know of for wheels that would work okay on concrete?

I see wheels that look pretty good on http://www.wheeleez.com/utilitywheels.php. They have 3/4" plastic bushing surfaces that would slide off a slightly distorted axle. I think we have to avoid hard steel bearings since they can't be pulled off an axle that's been even slightly distorted by tightening bolts.

It's labeled "2 Seater Assembly manual" but the link is to the cockpit enclosure kit. I snooped in the directory and found that the following will get the 2 seater assy manual until the link is corrected: